


Repeat

by Valenix



Series: Angst One-Shots [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: 100 percent chance of Not Dead if a second chapter appears, Angst, CPR, eventually, haven't decided yet whether it'll have a fix, i'll get drunk and post shitty angst if i want to, it's my birthday, let's say 95 percent chance of Dead, potential major character death, probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-10-15 00:35:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17518847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valenix/pseuds/Valenix
Summary: 30 chest compressions. Two breaths. Repeat.





	Repeat

**Author's Note:**

> The irony here is that I'm genuinely a fucking ray of sunshine and positivity irl so I'm about as confused as you are about how the hell I end up writing this kind of thing. Also I literally planned on writing Supervillain Tony Crack but somehow came across this sitting in the back of my folder of WIPs and decided to post this instead. Take it. 
> 
> (If you're reading this because you're feeling low, lemme know and I'll send you a truly astounding number of shitposts to brighten up your day)

There’s an odd kind of monotony that sets in in a crisis; a series of steps that you know to follow, because you’ve thankfully been trained before, that are easy and simple and clear and give you a direction when everything else is falling away into nothing. You lose track of everything. Your emotions fade away into nothing, and you exist with one single directive in mind. Perhaps it’s escape. Perhaps it’s fighting. Perhaps it’s saving someone you love.

30 chest compressions. Two breaths. Repeat.

The world had been compressed into only that, and the perverse irony of that one song about staying alive floating through Steve’s head, keeping time. The dust was barely settling from the end of the battle, Tony’s blood still seeping out from between Barton’s fingers, from the bandage Natasha was wrapping desperately around the rebar that had pierced Tony’s side.

30 chest compressions. Two breaths. Repeat.

Tony’s eyes were still open, slightly, unfocused and glazed and so obviously not there that Steve knew he’d be having nightmares about this for months. Years. The rest of his life. His jaw was lax, his head listlessly rolling to the side a little every time Steve set it down and returned his hands to the endless attempt to make his heart beat again.

Someone was coming with a defibrillator, he thought. Someone would be here soon. Just keep his heart going a little longer. Sustain that rhythm so that the damn thing has something to shock back to normal, because all the movies were wrong. It didn’t shock a still heart back to life. It just reset the rhythm of a heart beating out of control.

Don’t let the rhythm stop. There’s no going back from that.

30 chest compressions. Two breaths.

Repeat.

He can feel the tears on his face. Can taste them when he tilts Tony’s head back, breathes between his lips, in some perversion of the way they kissed. He doesn’t bother brushing them away. His hands are needed elsewhere - and besides.

He’s totally numb.

He can hear sirens approaching, can hear someone yelling nearby.

Oh god. Could they shock him with the arc reactor?

He falters for a moment, and instantly Thor is there, shoving him aside and taking his place, yelling at the others to get back so he can slap his hands down on Tony’s bare skin and send a shock through him himself.

Tony jolted, and then was still. Thor continued chest compressions.

Steve realised he’d felt ribs crack under his palm and shudders. He hears another crack that Thor ignores. Then there are paramedics sweeping onto the scene, and Steve falls backward, scuttles away, trying to give them room.

He doesn’t really pay attention to anything after that. 


End file.
